“Why would they do that?” I said, my steps slowing, and Jake turned around to see what the hold-up was.
Jen smiled, her expression instantly lightening before she threw her arms around my neck.
“Only you would ask that,” she said when she pulled back. “They did it for you. This is their big gesture.”
“A damn big gesture,” Vervain said, eyebrows lifting.
“And one you deserve. A million heavens wouldn’t be enough. Now, Samson… He’s not of the same ilk as Blackthorn, but I’m not sure if he’s going to like us around.”
“Yeah?” I looked back over at Jake’s back.
“He’s going to tolerate you,” Jen said. “He’ll have to. But us…”
I glanced at them as we walked. That was a whole can of awkward I hadn’t opened up yet. I was about to watch someone get Jake off to get me off. Vervain noted my expression and grinned.
“Samson, he’s a card-carrying member of the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club. We can wait outside for him to work his magic on Jake, but first, you want to establish some ground rules…”
I knew who Samson was before we even walked up the small path to what looked like a cottage. ‘Heaven,’ or whatever this was, had an odd structure to it. Buildings, tents, tables and chairs, all sorts of structures were set up in a haphazard fashion all throughout this alternate plane, created temporarily from magic I was informed, only to be reabsorbed again before everyone left.
He sat on a bench with his head leaning back against the wall of his cottage, one foot propped up beside him, the other stretched out indolently. He had a mane of rich chestnut hair and grey eyes that took me in, then Jake as we drew closer. He took a long drag from a clay pipe he held, exhaling little circles of smoke before setting it down.
“We’ll be right here,” Jen had said. “I need to catch up with some of the delegates from House Cinnabar, anyway.” She nodded to a group of people wearing stylised clothing made from leather and fur. “Establish the rules, don’t take any shit, and get out of there if it’s not working for you.”
“Yes, Mum.”
“So you’ve come back?” he said, moving towards Jake, not looking at me. A deliberate thing, I was sure. “And all ready for me?” His eyes dropped to the straining flap in the red leather pants. “Good boy, Jacob.”
“Ready for me,” I said, stepping forward, speaking way more firmly and boldly than I felt. Vervain had schooled me on how to act on the way over here. “I’m Kira. I asked Jake to find someone to play with, someone who would be aching for him. He mentioned you. Are you interested?”
Samson’s eyes narrowed down, his expression so completely spontaneous, it was almost shocking to see. People seemed to have their game faces on here. He looked stung, like I’d slapped him, but he paid me no mind.
“You put a woman between us? Is this your latest ploy to resist what the stars themselves know? Jacob…”
I watched Jake flinch under his words and not in a way that seemed conducive to the mood he was going for. I slipped my hand in his and squeezed it.
“Stop talking to him. You’ve seen the collar, you know what it means and why he gave it to me to put on him.” That got the other man’s attention, his eyes spearing straight through me. “Are. You. Interested?”
He shifted as I punctuated the words, making me realise just how tall he was. He towered over the two of us as his arms crossed his chest, the muscles revealed by the hiking up of his shirt sleeves, but he just stared back at me.
“C’mon,” I said, tightening my grip on Jake’s lead, his eyes rolling back as he felt the pressure of the leather on his throat, just revelling in that before stumbling after me. I’d gotten several steps up the path before he called out.
“Wait!”
I did, pausing for a moment as my eyes flicked to Jake, checking his body language, his breathing. That’s what they’d told me on the way over—that topping someone required serious powers of observation, that you needed to read people in ways you’d never done before. His chest heaved, making all the muscles shift there beautifully. I moved in close to him and ran a hand over it, down his abdomen.
“So pretty,” I said in an encouraging tone. “You look so beautiful, Jake.”
“Yeah?” He breathed the words out, ragged and making it clear how close to the edge he was.
“Do you want this? How will he make you ache, Jake?”
He swallowed hard, his eyes darting around as he tried to put thoughts together. I shouldn’t be doing this. They’d told me to keep it all theatrical, keep him in the sub head space, but I needed to know. I wasn’t really a voyeur. I liked to watch plenty, but what I really wanted was to be inside people, knowing how they reacted, what turned them on, how they felt about it all. Just as I dissected people with my lens, I wanted to analyse his reactions to this. For some reason, that was just as big a turn on.
His eyes screwed shut for a moment, his breath getting faster rather than slower as my hands roamed, gently, soothingly.
“Jake?”
“He wants… He wants everything I have. All my cum, all my thoughts, my responses, my likes and dislikes, all my relationships. He wants to be my entire world. He’s a fucking black hole, and he wants to suck everything I am down into him. But if you want to see someone destroy me, he’s your guy.”
“And do you want to be destroyed?”
Those green eyes flicked open at that, only a slit before shooting me a sidelong look.
“You’ll be my lifeline? Promise me that. Pull me out of here when it’s done, don’t let me stay, no matter what I say.”
“Fuck, Jake…”
“Promise?”
He turned around to face the other man, who’d drawn closer, and took my hand in his as we walked towards Samson.
“I won’t lay a finger on you,” Samson said to me.
“Works for me,” I said. “I don’t want you to.”
“And you keep your pretty little hands to yourself. If he wants an audience to what is inevitable, I don’t mind, but you don’t interfere.”
I remembered Jake’s long list of things he had done to him and shook my head definitively. There it was—the power of ‘no.’
“No fucking way,” I said. “You aren’t having him under those conditions. I’ve seen half a dozen dudes check out what he’s packing on the way over here.” My hand slid down his front and closed over his cock, and he moaned, thrusting and pushing my hand harder into him. “I could find what I want for him within about five minutes, but I was prepared to follow his lead. You and I aren’t touching, but we’re working together on this, to give Jake what he needs. Are you on board with that?”
He laughed in response to that, Samson, but I just waited him out, until the smirk dropped away and what I knew lurked beneath rose up. He ached for Jake, I knew that as sure as breathing, enough to put whatever antipathy he felt for me to one side. My gaze remained steady when he finally nodded.
It was a funny little place, all this magic expended to create what looked like a medieval style cottage. There was an old pump sink, a table covered by clutter, but he drew us up the stairs to a room that spanned the entire top of the building. A heavy wooden bed with a carved bedhead spread before us.